Documentary Production L32034 ASSIGNMENT DOCUMENTARY ANALYSIS Life In The Undergrowth Calum Grace Among the many nature

e documentary presenters of his time, one of the most famous is probably David Attenborough. He is known in particular for his Life... series of documentaries made for the BBC, which began in 1979, as well as for his great contributions to the cause of conservation. This critique is primarily concerned with Attenborough's Life In The Undergrowth documentary, which was originally aired in 2005. The programme takes a look at the world of insects, arachnids and invertebrates. In each episode, Attenborough uses a mixture of narration and limited on-location interaction to convey information to the viewer. Life In The Undergrowth was perhaps revolutionary as a nature documentary for its then-original use of digital technology to get incredibly close to the subjects of each episode. This macro photography is very important for the documentary, as it better allows Attenborough to explain the creatures' activity to the viewers, as well as making it easier for the viewers to really see what's going on. Numerous times, the sheer difference in scale is shown by Attenborough, such as one particular moment wherein he uses a pin-head to show how small a certain insect is. Supplementary to this is the programme's brilliant use of slow-motion to capture small things like the beating of a dragonfly's wings. This is accompanied by the time-honoured documentary tradition of time-lapse photography to, for instance, show a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Unlike other nature documentaries, Life In The Undergrowth does not simply show animals for the audience's viewing pleasure. The programme, and David Attenborough's excellent brand of narration, take a far more objective, scholarly viewpoint. This is not to say that the programme is overly dry in its delivery. Quite the contrary, as Attenborough imparts knowledge in a very enthusiastic manner, free of strange or unfamiliar terminology, or of long-winded info-dumps that would simply bore the audience. Also, to his credit, Attenborough never attempts to tell a story, as many other documentary presenters are prone to doing. Instead, we see vignettes of these creatures' activities, their life in the undergrowth and we are provided with a sparse, informative narration to explain what is happening and why. This is admirable, as presenters who attempt to tell a story with their subjects can often come across as preachy or desperate to tug at the viewer's heart strings. Crucially, Attenborough's narration is devoid of the dramatic and is purely concerned with the scientif ic and behavioral side of things. David Attenborough keeps his interactions with the subjects of each episode small and uncommon, each an exception to the rule. Again, this is contrary to a lot of other contemporary nature documentary presenters, who's entire schtick revolves around a great deal of interaction between man and beast. Again, I find Attenborough's stance quite admirable. After all, this is a nature documentary, not a trip to the zoo. Whenever our presenter does interact with one of the subjects, the interaction is strictly minimal and functional in nature, usually to show scale or particular features of the creatures' physiology that one could not normally show simply through observation. For me, this is the essence of what a nature documentary should be. Observation is key to discovering a subject's everyday habits and activities. Once a presenter begins to interact with that subject, the everyday is interrupted and we are no longer seeing an accurate presentation of its

behaviour in its natural habitat. These participatory documentaries often come across in much the same manner as the tell a story presenters that is, desperate to grab the viewer's attention somehow. In these cases, this participation is often accompanied by the needless personif ication of the subjects, which is a useless exercise as each creatures' mind simply does not act in the same way others do, let alone in a similar manner to that of a human. In my opinion, this gets away from the far more admirable observational and scientif ic viewpoint that Attenborough takes in this series. This scientif ic stance pervades the series. This is particularly noticeable in the first episode of Life In The Undergrowth, wherein we examine the ways in which certain insects and invertebrates evolved to suit their particular habitat on land, as well as looking at the ways in which they still retain a semblance of their original, water-dwelling incarnation, such as the shells of snails and their dependance on moisture. Throughout the series, Attenborough explains situations through the lens of biology, rather than the dramatic, emotion laden, but ultimately inaccurate explanations of certain other nature documentary presenters. The science behind nature is clearly very important for Attenborough, and he goes about his explanations with gusto. The science is never overwrought or confusing, but intriguing and eye-opening. Even when he does use pieces of scientif ic terminology to describe certain aspects of a subjects physiology (such as ovipositor), the footage shows us what Attenborough is referring to clearly, and the word-dropping is then followed by an explanation of the function of this unfamiliar piece of physiology within the context of the situation we are seeing. This scientif ic enthusiasm is backed up by an equal amount of enthusiasm for the subjects themselves. In every piece of narration, Attenborough shows how much he enjoys talking about and examining these creatures through his masterful use of language. He paints a wonderful picture of each subject, such that if you were to take away the footage, the documentary would still be quite satisfying to listen to. The narration is not overly verbose, however, and certainly leaves the image to speak for itself more often than not. As enjoyable and pleasurable to listen to as the narration is, Attenborough knows when to hold back and let the viewer take in the magnif icently shot footage for themselves. Life In The Undergrowth is not a perfect documentary, though. There are one or two niggling problems with the production, chief among them the seeming lack of focus each installment of the programme has. While an episode may start out with a common theme, this theme never really gets resolved and no real concrete conclusions are made. In the end, each episode is sweeping, brilliant to watch and very interesting, but there never seems to be any point to it other than the fact that it is informative and incredibly well-produced. What's more, you can tell that Attenborough is definitely trying to make each episode of the programme themed in some way, but his efforts are regrettably fruitless. This can be seen in many such nature documentaries. They are certainly enjoyable and educational to watch, but they are by no means focused.An episode may begin with seeming laser-focus on a particular theme, then eventually begins to muddle about trying to fill the runtime. Of course, this issue is not completely and utterly detrimental to the series as a whole I would still recommend that people give it a watch but don't go in expecting anything other than a meandering exploration of a fascinating subject. Part of what makes this so is due in no small part to the editing of the programme. While Attenborough does his best to connect each disparate subject into a unif ied whole (and succeeds on numerous occasions), some of the cuts to differing subjects often feel entirely incidental and almost random. The viewer is deftly lead by the hand, but sometimes the reasoning for being lead a certain way

can by quite tenuous. This makes the experience of watching the programme rather lethargic and odd in places. On top of this, another small problem with the production as a whole is that, as informative and interesting as the documentary is, the viewer is never really challenged. Oftentimes, the programme can feel a little like it is trying to impart information as slowly and sparingly as possible. While this can help understanding, it can often feel annoyingly like it is dumbing down things for the audience's benefit. This is not to say that I want all sorts of confusing scientif ic terminology being thrown around, or that I want to be confused. The problem is that this dumbing down of the content can induce a kind of numbing of the senses, wherein the viewer starts to simply let the narration and images wash over them without much care for what is being imparted. This may sound a little extreme, but bear with me. The science and astronomy documentary series Wonders Of The Universe does this particularly well. It does a good job of imparting high concepts, using the correct terminology and retaining its focus on the themes at hand without dumbing things down too much, neglecting to challenge the viewer or descending into interminable meandering. With Wonders, the viewer must take an active role in taking the programme in. Naturally, there is a balance to be struck here, but Wonders does this brilliantly. Life In The Undergrowth, however, tips the scale somewhat. This is regrettable, as the documentary is clearly trying to attain the same balance between an easy to understand programme, and what might essentially amount to a dry academical treatise in video form. Unfortunately, to a certain degree, it fails in this endeavour. Now, your mileage may vary, and I wholeheartedly encourage the reader to view the documentary themselves and make their own decision as to whether or not this constitutes a real problem with the production. While the problems with the production that have been detailed so far do have a noticeable effect on the entire production, they are still quite minor in comparison to the good points listed beforehand. On the whole, Life In The Undergrowth is altogether an extremely well-produced documentary, and another fine example of David Attenborough's mastery of his particular wheelhouse. It explores broad themes, imparts a great degree of knowledge to the viewer and is, in general, genuinely a very pleasant viewing experience. It is far superior to many other contemporary nature documentaries in numerous respects. Attenborough's narration is exquisite and holds no pretensions about itself or its subject. Despite its notable shortcomings, Life In The Undergrowth rises above these and proves itself to be an enjoyable and above all informative documentary.